By Robert Mentzer • Wausau Daily Herald • May 18, 2008

Motorists define their personal 'tipping' points
In the process of reporting this week's package of stories on the impact of rising gasoline prices, we asked a number of people from different walks of life about their own benchmarks -- at what price would they begin making major changes in their lives? Here's what they had to say:

Name: Holly Whittlef
Age: 23
Hometown: Wausau

I don’t drive a lot, but I’ll fill up a quarter of a tank and it’s like 20 bucks. The only place I do drive is to work. Other than that, I try to walk. We live not too far from downtown, so it’s nice, you can walk to the mall, you can walk downtown.

I’m applying to jobs now, and I’ve been thinking, depending on where I get a job, of trying to find a place within a couple of miles so that I can bike to work. So even now I’m kind of rearranging where I’m going to live based on how close it is to work so I don’t have to make that commute — I can make it a bike commute, or make it a walk commute instead of making it a drive commute. For me that’s a huge factor in thinking about where I’m going to get a job and kind of deciding where I’m going to live based on that. So that’s kind of already in place for me. But still, once it hits $4, that’s going to hurt.

Name: Thao Moua
Age: 19
Hometown: Wausau
I drive to a lot of places, but I have to drive. I work at the Holiday Inn all the way in Rothschild by Cedar Creek. I can’t bike over there, it’d take 40 minutes just to get there. I just pay the $3.50, or whatever we pay. But still, that’s still a lot of money out of pocket. I’ve got to cut back on my clothes shopping, cut back on stuff that I want to do. I’ve got to cut back big time.

Name: Don Wright
Age: 40
Hometown: Schofield
We’re walking a lot of places now, riding bikes. But what are you going to do? We need the vehicles, so we’re cutting back a lot (on other things). This weekend we’re planning on taking a trip to Minneapolis, and basically we’ve been saving for that just for the gas. We don’t take trips as often, we’ve put off a lot of things because of it.

They’re talking 6-7 dollars by June. Right now it’s a burden, but I think by that time — if it gets to five bucks, that’s a lot. You depend on that vehicle, so you’re eventually going to have to take that trip and pay that money.

Name: Gerhard Kirsch
Age: 69
Hometown: Wausau

I am retired, but I drive to go to physical exercises and to work at my two sons’ houses. I do as little driving as I can, try to put trips together more. But right now I can’t, and I have therapy on top of it. There’s not much you can really do except pay it. I try to drive 55 mph, with slow starts and slow stops. I try to do all that. I hope that Social Security goes up a bit to help offset it.

If it goes up to $4, my sons will have to do their work themselves after their own work.

Name: Josh Zimick
Age: 22
Hometown: Wausau

I actually recently bought a moped because of the gas prices, and I’ve been driving that to work. (My car) I just use if I’m going shopping or if I need to move some stuff — if I do need the room, it’s there for me. Otherwise, if I’m just bumming around, I’ll take the moped. It gets about 60 to 70 miles per gallon, so about $7 gets me through the whole week.

Name: John Fischer
Age: 39
Hometown: Town of Wausau

I’ve got a Ford Excursion, it’s a V-10, the largest mass-production vehicle ever built. Gas prices take a bite. You have to make a lot of choices, and there are certain things that you give up. I’ve got a large camper that we used to put on a spot every year. You buy a spot, then every weekend drive to the campsite. Now, we’ll make it up there two or three weekends per year.

For me, if I swapped vehicles I would probably look at going to diesel. I don’t know if I can give a firm number, but it’s based on what we can afford. As soon as it starts tapping into savings — if it’s to the point where I can’t pay for gas in one month, it’s time to take a really good look at that. That would probably happen at around $6 or $7 per gallon.